This invention relates generally to roasting devices and, more particularly, to a food roasting apparatus that holds food items when cooking on an open fire or grill.
Many people have long enjoyed cooking over open fires. Though people have traditionally cooked over an open fire with a twig or stick, campers and picnickers have long been seeking an easier, cleaner, and better way. In response, several products have been made available for cooking traditional campfire foods such as hot dogs, sausages, and marshmallows. Many of these products employ a skewer-type utensil to hold the food, such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,117,558, 6,085,642, and 6,196,121, which require the food item to be punctured. The puncturing of the food can easily cause the food to split apart or lose most of its moisture during cooking. These products also raise safety concerns since the sharp points on the utensils' tips can be especially dangerous for children and can cause accidents when being carried or transported.
Other products have used wire baskets to hold the food, but these products have had their own disadvantages. Those with baskets that open and close, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,433,151 and 5,307,797, have been cumbersome to operate, which can easily lead to the operator being burned or dropping the food. Those with open baskets, such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,804,819, 4,380,192, 5,355,778, and 5,628,244, are unbalanced or open on the end furthest from the user. In the unbalanced products, the basket and food item are being raised and lowered a small amount as the handle is rotated. This requires extra work to be done by the user, and it may also affect how well the food is cooked by changing the distance between the food and the fire. Thus, user fatigue and uneven cooking result. If the end furthest from the user is open, the food will fall if the user does not keep the device level or angled upwards, and it is somewhat difficult to unload the food to the desired location. If a user becomes fatigued, the end furthest from the user will often become angled downward.
Finally, some of the available products do not allow the food to cook evenly by rotating laterally, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,775,207, and many of those mentioned above cannot be disassembled for cleaning or carrying.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a food roasting apparatus that does not puncture food, allows food to cook evenly, is easy to use, easy and safe to carry, and easy to clean.